A loving tribute to anime and kaiju

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2013)

Pacific Rim is a live action mashup of giant robot anime and classic rubber-suit kaiju movies (eg Godzilla).
Being a Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) movie, it has a strong, bold and lavish sense of visual style. It is clear that Del Toro both knows and loves both of the movie traditions he is drawing on but also suffuses the movie with a Hollywood sensibility, all without an obvious clash or discord.
The plot is not deep, in fact as anime it would be on the markedly shallow side. There is none of the philosophical musings or mythological literacy that underlies good anime. It is, in the end, about as deep as a Godzilla film. The characters are shallowly drawn with obvious motivations. The plot is pretty minimal with most of the movie being spent on action sequences.
In the end, my review is much like my review of Avatar. Its a B action movie. But what a B action movie!
I saw it in IMAX 3D and, if you can, its definitely worth the extra few bucks. The movie is visually stunning, exciting in its action sequences, and in the end just a whole lot of fun for anyone else who loves the source genres.
Which certainly includes me.